[members-discuss] Annual contribution payment options

Dear Alexey, all,

Thank you for your suggestions. We have done a quick review, and our current response is as follows:

1) We used to accept payment in quarterly/half-yearly terms but removed this option in 2017 because of the additional administrative overhead. It may not seem much to invoice and receive four payments rather than one, but the complications due to transfer and closure related aspects linked to payment requirements, and the additional work following the high number of reminders that had to be sent, lead to this decision. For the 2022 invoices, the process has now been started, so we are not able to make any changes for this year. There is however nothing that prevents you to split the payment into multiple payments as long as they amount to the invoice total and are clearly marked with the payment reference stated on the invoice: Debtor Number/Invoice Number.

We will however take another look at this for future years, taking into account that we still need to treat all members equally.

2) The RIPE NCC charging scheme specifies the fees in Euro. Since the vast majority of our cost base is in Euro this not only provides equal terms for all members but also the lowest currency risk for the RIPE NCC. 

It is possible to transfer money in other currencies to our ABN AMRO EURO account. Some members do this already but we do not recommend it. When the foreign currency is received by ABN AMRO, the bank exchanges these funds to EUR on the daily exchange rate defined by ABN AMRO. This may result in overpayment or underpayment, which causes additional work on both the member and RIPE NCC side.

We have in the past had bank accounts in USD in Dutch banks. The banks are not only subject to European regulations but also in most cases to US OFAC sanctions. The bank may require us to add additional controls to ensure that OFAC sanctioned members do not transfer money to these accounts without obtaining an OFAC licence. 

We are currently investigating options in this area.

3) We briefly investigated cryptocurrency payments and apart from the environmental considerations of the proof-of-work currencies, our bank’s know your customer (KYC) programs mandated by anti-money laundering regulations put us at additional risk by accepting payment through unregulated monetary instruments due to the anonymity provided by these financial instruments.

We are currently monitoring this. If any of your finance teams have experience in this we are interested to learn more from them.

As of today, we accept the following payment mechanisms:
https://www.ripe.net/participate/member-support/payment/receiving-and-paying-invoices 

It’s important to know that despite the issues I mention above, we will not close any members due to payment difficulties or sanctions-related matters in affected countries. And we will contact any members who might be impacted to let them know. Our focus is to ensure our members stay operational during these difficult times.


Sincerely


Hans Petter Holen
Managing Director
RIPE NCC



> On 9 Mar 2022, at 23:10, Alexey S. Berezhnev <alex at mac3.ru> wrote:
> 
> Dear colleges,
> 
> I would like to discuss the possibility to pay up RIPE NCC bills (annual contribution, to be more specific)  in other currencies, than EURO.
> 
> I can assume, as per the latest actions of the currency regulator - Central Bank of Russia, there is a chance that outgoing payments in EURO will be either impossible, or will be performed with double conversion with high commission at each step for Russian LIR holders. This will double the expense, of Russian LIRs. Not to mention, that payments made by sponsoring LIR significantly exceed regular contribution for an obvious reason.
> 
> Therefore, I suggest the following measures to be discussed.
> 
> 1. Break payments into quarters for Russian LIRs, and yet perhaps, we will overcome the limits set by central bank until Sept 9, 2021
> 
> 2. Make it possible for the annual contribution to be made  USD, etc. by prevailing cross-rate.
> 
> 3. Evaluate the possibility to accept cryptocurrency (ETH, BTC, and etc).
> 
> This post is totally about financial problems to be discussed, and therefore I kindly ask other members to avoid any political statements in this thread.
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> ------
> Alexey S. Berezhnev
> Office: +7 495 973 21 25
> 
> 
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